Long Winter, New Family Pet

We were warned that the weather in Belgium would be cold and rainy but our first winter here apparently was one of the longest, snowiest, and coldest ones.  The last snow storm brought a few inches, which is a lot by Belgium standards.  

Just before this storm, we discovered a snail living in one of the plants on our terrace.  Because of this late storm, we decided to take in the snail so it wouldn't freeze to death.  The kids decided to name it "Gary", a nod to the only other snail they know - Gary the snail from Spongebob Square Pants.

 

 

 And so the snail lived happily ever after!

Back in NJ (April 2013)

We were super excited to be back in NJ for our first time since we moved last August.  We could not wait to see everyone again.  And most exciting of all was meeting Bo Bo.  We have been fawning over her pictures and videos but we just couldn't wait to meet her in person, squeeze her tight and take in all of her deliciousness.  Another priority was to hit up all my favorite stores and to eat some home cookin'.

Jersey Fierce
We're back in NJ and we have a mini J-Lo.  

Meeting our cousin Bo Bo for the first time

Catching up on 8 months of fun

Bed head crew!

 Permanent smiles for 2 weeks straight, besties for life!

Preparing for Teem Teem's first Easter Egg Hunt

Loving the Easter egg hunt

Seeing candy for the first time :)

Another perq of being back...hand fed by Gong Gong with one of their favorite dishes!

A Visit to the Zoo

The Liberty Science Museum

Wind Tunnel with 70 mph speeds!

Giant bubble maker

We saw this lizard get his feeding and watched him devour a whole mouse in 5 minutes.  No chewing, just gulped him down.

Ethan and his twin brother

We also met up with our friends, James and Dylan for a wonderful pizza lunch!

Bo Bo had no choice but to play dress up with me.  One of the many outfits she tried on for the day.

Matching smiles

Nightly feasts

Makeover Party on the last day. The girls loved this!

Love this pic!

Ethan and Ava loved being "home" in NJ.  For Ava, it was bonding time with her bestie and for Ethan is was having a yard and being able to play all his favorite sports (even if sometimes it was using Teem Teem's girly sports equipment).  It was so hard to leave!  

Tooth Fairy (March 2013)

Yes, I know I'm way behind in my posts...it's been a busy couple of months with my surgery and traveling.  Now it's time to catch up!

After weeks of having a loose tooth, Ethan's tooth finally fell out!  He was so happy to have the tooth fairy come.  She even left some "fairy dust" which Ethan quickly pointed out that it looked like glitter :)

The Tooth Fairy was really generous.  She left 10 euros which we found out later was 10x the going rate of other families!  Ethan was confident she would leave more next time.  I nipped that in the bud quick.

Ava gets Tooth Fairy money too.  Yes, we are suckers.